Alarm, No Frost!

At 2:30 am, the alarm sounded. I jumped up and pulled on some clothes to go out into the cold night air. I walked out to the pumphouse and turned on the pumps. After opening the valves to blocks 1 and 3, I walked back home and crawled back into bed. The temperature had dropped a third of a degree in the time it had taken to start up the system. I reset the alarm and went back to sleep. The alarm sounded two times after that, signifying that the temperature had risen above the set point and dropped again below it. By morning, the temperature still hovered at the alarm threshold, and the humidity was 98%. No sign of frost. Ah well... better safe.

Today I'm interviewing a candidate for an internship from Sonoma State University. SSU's wine business program offers 1 credit for 45 hours of work. It is a paid internship, and is slated to last for 135 hours; 3 college credits. I'm hoping to get some help with marketing and sales, along with administration assistance. Clary Ranch Wines will need to grow in order to start paying a real payroll. The type-02 winery license is essential to the sustainability of the venture.

The use permit from the county is a major hurdle. Drew got an estimate of $8000 from the county. OUCH! A nearby winery permit of comparable size cost about one-fourth of that last year. I guess county revenues are down, and they're looking to make up the shortfall.

Frost, No Alarm!

Dipped just barely into the frost zone this morning, and my alarm didn't sound! I'm crossing my fingers that the cold stayed close to the ground. We're in the process of mowing the rows clean. That helps with cold air movement as well as allowing the ground to accumulate more heat during the day. The stored heat then radiates back out to the vines during the night. I checked the alarm and reset it. It seems to be working now.

I'm preparing for a tasting this Saturday, May 2: our "Springtime Tasting in the Vineyard". We'll be pouring tastes of all of our wines, including some pre-release 2007's. I'll go to the winery today to pick up some cases of the just-bottled wines. At the tasting, we'll have equestrian demonstrations and vineyard tours. See you there!

Butter & Egg Parade

The parade was yesterday.

Our float, representing the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance (PGWA), was an antique crawler towing a buckboard wagon that was carrying some compost, a winepress, and several winegrowers. My buddy's youngest daughter thought it was the coolest-looking float. Good answer!

I rode in the driver's seat of the wagon, holding a bottle of 2006 Clary Ranch Pinot Noir. I had Liana and Olivia walk alongside the float to hand out extra wine labels... Shameless Promotion and Child Labor: two great concepts that go great together, right? I told the girls I'd pay them $4/hour plus a $1/hour bonus if they smiled.

Well, it didn't work out like I hoped. Liana handed out two labels. Olivia handed out a few more. Both of them said that they didn't earn the smiling bonus. Oh well.

The PGWA is a committee-run organization, supposedly an alliance of growers, wineries and interested local wine enthusiasts. The board meets once a month so that they can review the decisions that were postponed at the last meeting, and before adjourning, they postpone any further decisions on questions that may arise. (In fairness, I may be exaggerating, but not by much...) Their stated mission is to educate wine consumers about the high-quality wines that are being grown in the Petaluma area. One would think that having events to expose local consumers to the wines would be high on the list of priorities. However, some board members are resistant to having PGWA sponsor events where wines could be sold, since this would "benefit only the wineries". So thus far, the only events we've had have been our own private parties where we drink our own wine and congratulate ourselves.

We have spent $4000 on a website and $4000 on a logo, yet cannot get support for spending $1200 on a public event where we can sell wine. There is a mental disconnect between the sale of winegrapes and the sale of wine. I am dumbfounded at the shortsightedness.

At the meeting when I was elected to the board, I interrupted the adjournment to push our participation in the parade. This action made me the Parade Committee Chair. We threw together the float with minimal fuss. In PGWA's two or three years of existence, it was their first public event. We weren't able to sell wine, but now at least Petalumans have the idea that world-class wines might be grown and produced in their own back yard. Now if we can only figure out a way to put wine into their mouths...

Ain't decision-by-committee grand?

Pouring on the Peninsula

Thursday, I picked up the kids right after school at three & went straight to my folks' place in Terra Linda. Left them there with Grandma and Papa, and got back on the road to Hiller Air Museum in San Carlos.

I was headed to a Venture Capital presentation. I knew that I was supposed to come, but with how much wine? How many people? I knew none of the details. The gathering was scheduled to begin at 5, and I left Terra Linda at about 20 to 4. Traffic wasn't bad, and I got thru the City and down to San Carlos by about an hour later.

When I got there, there was a check waiting for me, paying for one case of Pinot. I was to pour from that case and leave the remainder. Okay by me! I need to attend more functions like this.

They fed me sushi, garlic shrimp, carved tri-tip, seared ahi, roast beef on a skewer, crab cakes - and I was drinking the wine that they bought from me! OH... MY... GOSH! At one point I had people saying to me, in urgent, hushed tones: "Paul: Raise your hand and wave." They had just introduced me to a crowd of about a hundred. Sign me up for another tasting along these lines, please!

A speaker named Vinood Something talked at length about opportunities in green technology. As I was made to understand, he was a founder of Sun or Apple or Some Big Tech Firm. He was talking about getting into Billion-dollar markets on the cheap: just 50 million. These guys can afford my wine.

I invited interested guests to the Springtime Tasting in the Vineyard on May 2. I expect I'll see a couple of them, maybe more. There is the possibility of a BarnBurners shindig afterwards.

We'll see. I'm tired tonight.

Tomorrow morning is Petaluma's Butter & Egg Parade, and I'm in charge of the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance float: a 1947 Cletrac crawler pulling a cartload of winegrowers and some compost and a wine press. Gotta be in line by 8:30am, and we don't cross the STARTING line 'til 1:40. Look for me and my chillens! Christopher will be marching with the Boy Scouts, just ahead of Liana, Olivia and me with the Winegrowers float. See you there.

2007's Bottled!

I'm just coming up for air! This week has been BIZ-ZY!!!

I haven't written in awhile, so I've got some catchin' up to do....

Music

Sunday, I got a call from Joe, the bass player. Chris, the other guitarist in the Electric Fun Band, couldn't make it to the dress rehearsal that was scheduled for Tuesday night. My bottling was scheduled for the following day. EFB was booked to play on Sunday, the 26th, at a bar in Cotati. The drummer was to return from the UK on Monday night, and Tuesday night was the only night that we could rehearse. Reluctantly, we called the bar and canceled - no way were we ready without one time thru with the whole band. That was a back-breaker, but in no way physically comparable to Bottling Day.

Kids

Sunday afternoon, my "week-on" began with my four kids, Patrick - 16, Liana - 12 Christopher - 10, and Olivia - also 10 (fraternal twins). We all had dinner with my folks at Applebee's in Petaluma, and then settled in to get ready for school the next morning.

School-day mornings, I get the kids up, make their lunches, and we leave for school by 8. By 8:30, the kids are all at school, and I can start my workday. At the end of the day, I generally pick up Liana, Christopher and Olivia at after-school care by 5:30, and go on to pick up Patrick at Cathy's house. Back at home, I cook dinner and make sure that homework gets done. That's my routine every other week. That is THIS week - Bottling Week. It hasn't been a typical week...

Bottling 2007 wines

I went to the winery on Monday and hand-bottled two cases of usulfited tank samples, one case each of the 2007 Pinot and the 2007 Syrah. I use these to compare with the main bottling to determine when the main bottling is ready for release. After I pulled the samples, we added aqueous sulfite to bring the wines' free sulfite level up to 40ppm.

Tuesday I returned and hand-bottled 4 cases of 1.5L magnums of the Pinot and Syrah. I get a lot of requests for donations of "either a case or a large format bottle." People don't realize that not every winery is a huge affair with hundreds of thousands in case production. A case is a significant amount of wine for tiny wineries like mine. So I figured that magnums were the way to go. Anyway, I bottled up 3 cases of Syrah magnums and 1 case of Pinot.

Bottling Day

Wednesday morning, Galo and I grabbed the few supplies that we had on hand, along with an empty cooler, and headed off to the winery. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up some sodas and ice. From there, we pulled into downtown Graton and spot-hired 4 guys to help on the bottling line.

When we arrived at the winery, I had two more workers waiting. The mobile bottling line was in place and ready to roll. Two guys started pulling cases of empty bottles, placing the bottles on the line. The bottles began moving, first to the sterilizer/sparger, then on to the filler. From the filler, they proceeded to the corker, which sealed the bottle with a vacuum of nitrogen. The capsules were placed, and the foil spun tightly to the bottle. After the labeling machine, the conveyor carried the filled and finished bottles back to the open end of the trailer, where three people placed the bottles into cases and slid the cases down rollers to the box sealer. Near the very end, an inkjet printer sprayed the pertinent case information on the case, and the boxes rolled on out to be manually stacked on pallets. One case was coming out every 9 seconds or so.

Three people, including myself, lifted the 42-pound boxes off of the rollers, flipped the boxes upside-down, and stacked them 11 to a row, 4 rows high, 44 to a pallet. When a pallet was done, Steve would tie twine around the top layer, wrap the whole thing in stretch wrap, and forklift it into the warehouse. Steve and his son, Steve, were the other two guys stacking with me. Little Steve was also operating the forklift on the other side of the line, keeping the first two supplied with empty bottles. So there were times when I was the only one pulling cases off!

One case was coming out every 9 seconds. The line could go faster. I felt like Lucy on the assembly line!

At one point, I was having to pull off boxes off the line and stack them on the ground because we had no pallet ready to stack. So I was having to lift twice. AAAaaargh! I cried uncle. "Could we slow down?" "No problem," came the answer. Thank God.

Filter Schmilter

The first two lots were extremely small: two 40-case lots of single-clone Pinots. Everything was working fine. The next lot was about 460 cases of the Whole Vineyard Blend of Pinot. 40 cases in, the $400 .45-micron filter needed to be replaced. After 40 more cases, we needed a third filter cartridge! This lot had already been sterile-filtered. This was looking ugly very fast. I stopped the line and ran to find Danny, the cellarmaster. He was not happy when I informed him that we needed to run a plate filter ahead of the bottling line, and we needed to do it NOW. After a minute of "@%#$&*!!", he and I set up the filter and re-routed the hoses and pump. When we finally were able to start the bottling line again, everything flowed just fine. The plate filter has a much greater surface area than the cartridge filter on the bottling line. Disaster averted. It cost me in unanticipated filtration expense, but that's the nature of life. I'm grateful that we were able to work it out in the end. Lesson learned: "Don't depend on the bottling line for filtration. It's more of a final insurance policy."

Two Hands

There were more minor glitches, but generally the rest of the job went pretty well. At the end of about 670 cases, my arms were Toast. On our way back to the Ranch, Galo and I stopped for a bite and a beer. There in the pub, I was able to hoist the chicken wings to my mouth with effort, but the beer took two hands. Good Beer!

Vineyard Tour

I just got in from conducting a vineyard tour for about 25 people. Today is the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance Vineyard Tour Day. Clary Ranch was vineyard number two on the tour. I took the group up to the highest point in the vineyard, overlooking the entire site, to get a good view of the topological formation that is known as the Petaluma Gap.

The coastal hills of Northern California have a gap that separates the hills of Marin County from the rest of the range to the north. From the northern tip of the Point Reyes peninsula to just above Bodega Bay, the ocean breezes and summer fogs push through the Petaluma Gap. This maritime air is pulled in by the rising warm air mass over California's Central Valley. Clary Ranch is situated right along the southern edge of the Gap. We have found that Pinot Noir and Syrah grown in this area produce wines of intense varietal character.

The dark side of this mouthwatering intensity is that harvest is pushed out as far as October and November! The closer you get to the coast, the cooler the climate.  Every autumn is a nail-biting race against the rains. This is truly Winegrowing on the Edge: the edge of the continent and the edge of my sanity, at times!

2007 Bottling, continued

No frost.

This morning, I went to my Sonoma State Wine Business class. As I drove toward Cotati, I called (on my hands-free phone, of course) the custom crush winery where my 2007 wine is awaiting bottling.

I need to do the final blend on two lots of 96 gallons, a lot of 355 gallons, and a lot of about 1100 gallons. I was informed that the winery would not have enough tank space to blend the largest lot. Somebody would be coming on bottling day to remove the bigger tanks from the winery. "Okay," I said calmly, my guts beginning to churn. Then they asked me if I was going to run the sulfur dioxide (SO2) analysis. "Okay, I guess so." I had already paid them to run the lab tests. Not good.

I continued on to class. Instead of Technology in the Tasting Room, the topic was Winery Financial Management. VERY good class. The first handout was a schedule of accounts: a great starting place for someone who is trying to make sense of a business that runs more on ego and passion than on making a financial return. When I look at Financial Software like Quickbooks, it says to pick the categories. I scroll down. It doesn't say anything about barrels... Hmm.

Turns out that these generic business systems don't have a good way of dealing with one of the wine business' most idiosyncratic features: Inventory is a multi-year affair. Expenses incurred in growing grapes and making wine aren't deducted from income until the wine is sold. Until then, those expenses go into the Asset column as inventory. With red wines, this is a three-year span between incurring expenses and realizing income. Producing white wines is a bit shorter, and buying & bottling bulk wine has a much quicker turnaround.

There are some custom programs that work really well, with full integration of vineyard and winery operations, but they are really only cost effective for wineries producing at least 5000 cases. For us smaller ones, the message was: Excel is a good program!

Anyway, it was an eye-opening class, and it removed some of the confusion about where to begin getting the financial house in order.

After class, I drove to the winery. Good news. They postponed the pickup of the tanks, so I WILL be able to do my blending Monday morning! And my SO2 testing WILL be done late Monday. I'll bring the Free SO2 up to 40 parts per million, but before I do that (and after blending), I'll pull some pre-release samples - maybe a couple of cases. So I'll be there doing the sample bottling at about 1 pm on Monday. The bottling line arrives on Tuesday evening, and we will start bottling at about noon on Wednesday!

2007 Bottling, Getting Ready

I picked up the labels for the 2007 wines from the printer yesterday. We've simplified the labels, going to a white background while slightly changing the color palette. The drop shadow has been tightened up for a crisper look, and the paper has been changed to a nicer texture.

Now I've got all of the pieces in place: bottles, corks, capsules and labels. The bottling line is scheduled, and the winery is ready. I'm excited about the upcoming bottling and need to get into the winery to do the final blending into tanks to prepare for bottling day (April 22).

Tomorrow morning, I'll be attending a Wine Business class at Sonoma State University (SSU). We'll be delving into software for managing sales, inventory, etc. for tasting room operations. As if growing the grapes and making the wine aren't enough, I'm getting a certificate in Tasting Room Management. I've also enrolled in the SSU internship program to hopefully get a part-time intern to help with Sales and Marketing. Depending upon the success of the internship, it may evolve into a full-time position. I can certainly stand to have some help with this all. SSU is unique in offering an MBA program in Wine Business, the only such program in the United States.

Growing premium grapes and making premium wines is a hands-on labor of love, but it does little good if we cannot easily connect with the people who appreciate such efforts. This is the hard edge of the small artisan producer.

Sounds and Sights

The frost alarm sounded at 1:30am. I sprang from the warmth of my cozy bedcovers, pulled on some clothes and walked out into the chilly night. The moon was beginning to rise over the eastern hills. The yowls of the coyotes pierced the night - first one, then the answering chorus. It is a lonely sound, but at the same time, a communal one.

I started the pumps and listened as the sprinklers began one by one to emit a small, shrill whistle. As I opened the valves on the lower blocks, I could hear the water as it pulsed down the lines. My task completed, I walked back home.

In the twenty minutes that it took to start up the system, the temperature had dropped another 1-1/2 degrees to just above freezing. Not so good, to drop so fast. There was nothing to do now but to wait 'til the sun warmed the vines enough for the ice to begin to fall from the wires and canes. I crawled into bed and drifted off into a deep sleep.

This morning, the icicles shone brightly as the sun's first rays illuminated them from behind. There were portions of the vineyard that did not shine: Up high on the eastern hillside where the temperatures remained warm enough to avoid the frost altogether, and in portions of one of of the lower vineyards where the absence of ice meant that cold air flow had frozen the lines before the water could reach the sprinklers. Not good.

Those areas of block two that had frozen up were not as far along in terms of budbreak, so there's a chance we still may have dodged a bullet, but time will tell. Buds that haven't pushed are not susceptible to frost. If, indeed, we did have damage to the buds, there will be a secondary bud that will push a bit later. The secondary bud is less fruitful than the primary one, but it will still bear some fruit. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the primaries squeak on undamaged.

Cold & Colder

Last night was another cold one. This is like a broken record, eh? Tonight is supposed to be colder still. Today we've got mighty winds a-blowin'. If they were blowing at night, we probably wouldn't worry so much about frost. The wind stirs up the air so that the cold doesn't get a chance to settle. That's how those big wind turbines work for frost protection.

Today, I'm delivering wine to Vine & Barrel, a great wine shop here in Petalumma. I'll be pouring a Pinot tasting there on this Saturday.

Also, I'm working on the planning for a "Springtime Tasting in the Vineyard" on May 2. I'm hoping to pour some pre-release 2007 wines then. We'll also have some Equestrian Demonstrations for fun. I share the premises with the Sonoma Coastal Equestraining Center. It's always fun to see some skilled riders taking their horses through their paces, jumping and so forth.

I'll get up to Lampson Tractor today to get some repair parts for the tractor and the mower. A clean-mowed vineyard is less susceptible to frost damage.

Tax Day is tomorrow! I'm filing an extension and payin' the feds today...

Lastly, I hope to get some guitar practice tonight. My band is playing at the Tradewinds in Cotati on April 26th, and I'll be playing guitar, singing lead on about half of the songs. It's all classic rock cover tunes. I was a composer earlier in life, but that's a story for another day.

Stay Warm!

Marginal Temps

I got up at 2:30 am when the frost alarm went off. If it had been closer to dawn, I might not have bothered, but with four hours of night to go and a clear sky above, I started up the pumps. By 3:30 am, the temp had just dipped to 31.4. At 6:50, the temperature was slightly above freezing and there was 97% relative humidity. Fog shrouded the vineyards as the morning sun began to filter over the hills to the east. I pulled on my shoes, wrapped myself in a bathrobe, and walked back out to shut the system down.

Two of the Pinot Noir blocks are lower in elevation than the pump, so I close those valves before shutting off the pumps. That way, the system doesn't drain after pump shutdown. It's easier on the pumps if they're already primed with a bit of water to push against.

A bit of frost lay on the ground, but it probably never got to a damaging temperature at the height of the buds. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20...

Budburst & Bottlings

The lower blocks are in full budburst now.

Rainy weather means a diminished chance for frost. Hopefully we'll get a bit of runoff to top off the reservoirs. The two times that we've run the sprinklers have dropped the water level a good six inches!

A pair of swans are nesting on the island in the large reservoir. They are the source of inspiration for naming one of two special bottlings of single-clone 2007 Pinot Noirs that we'll be offering to Wine Club members: "Deux Cygnes". It is made entirely from Pommard 4 clone, which we grow in the block that borders the reservoir on the east side. Way up on the hillside above, we have a block of clone 667, of which we are setting aside about 100 gallons to be bottled as "Fleur de la Vigne". Our main bottling of Pinot Noir will be a blend of all three clones that we grow here: Pommard 4, Dijon 113, & 667.

Morning Thoughts

Clouds and rain for the last two nights has thankfully meant a bit more sleep for me. Even so, I was dragging this morning. I gave my kids lunch money instead of making sandwiches. Got them all to school on time, and now it's on to taxes.

I bought a copy of TurboTax just so I can pay an estimate on time. Clary Ranch Wines is an "S" corporation, and we filed an extension on that one. My personal taxes are partially dependent on those results, so I'm trying to get a ballpark figure to send in.

I heard a news report this morning that wine sales are up for the low-end of the price spectrum, but down for premium wines. Good for the big multinational corporations. Bad for small producers like myself. Cult wines that used to be snapped up by those lucky enough to be on the mailing list are now languishing in warehouses. In the current economic climate, mass-produced wines seem to be pushing the handmade ones from the marketplace. I can't even bottle air for two bucks at my cost. More and more small vintners that I speak with are bemoaning (with not just a little desperation!) the prospective need to move into second labels to take advantage of the bulk wine market. It is far cheaper to find generic wine ready to bottle than to go to the trouble of growing or buying grapes, and nurturing them through fermentation and aging. Please support your local vintner!

My sincere and heartfelt gratitude goes out to my customers for their support of handmade wines. Vive la difference!

Down & Up

Last night was one of those nights. At 2:45 AM, my frost alarm went off when the temperature hit 33.8 degrees. If it had been 11 PM, I would have jumped out of bed, turned on the pumps and gone back to sleep. As I looked at the display, the temperature climbed up to 34 degrees. At 3:15, the alarm sounded again. With the temperature hovering like that, I decided to hold off. At 5:15, the temperature rose to 35 degrees. Turning on the system would have wasted many thousands of gallons of precious water. It could have just as easily gone the other way!

Due Diligence

We had freezing temps last night also. We use a lot of our water with each time that we start up the pumps on these frosty nights. Regular irrigation during the growing season has the pumps running for about five hours per week. If we start the frost system at midnight, the pumps will run for seven to eight hours in one night! So there is great incentive NOT to run the system. The difficulty is in the fact that the decision to start pumping for frost must happen in anticipation that the temperature WILL drop to below freezing. I've seen the temperature drop toward the point of no return, but stop short and then climb!

Today, I spoke with Drew about getting the Type-02 winery license here on the ranch. There is a lot of financial groundwork that needs to be laid before we proceed whole-heartedly in the venture. Drew has an extensive background in business finance, while my inclinations are more in the intuitive/scientific realm. I have no patience for keeping books, but I know that they must be done. Drew pointed out the need for me to focus my efforts in those areas where I can contribute the most value. I confirmed his assessment, informing him of my recently being diagnosed with ADHLAP*. In spite of my challenges, I'm hopeful that we can see this venture through.

Tomorrow, I'll be following up with the printer to confirm our label proofs. We're quickly approaching the bottling date for the 2007 wines, and our Spring Pre-Release Party will be following shortly thereafter. I've got my kids with me for the next week (They do alternating weeks between Cathy and me). Busy busy busy!

It's 8:30 pm, and the vineyard temperature is 47 degrees. My alarm is set for 33.8 degrees. I hope we get a break tonight.

*Attention-Deficit-Hey-Look-A-Puppy!

Sleepless in Spring

Tonight marks the start of Frost season. The vines began pushing buds in the last week or so of warm, sunny days. I just got in from starting up the pumps as the temperature dropped below 35.

It's often a tricky call as to when to start the pumps. The system is frugal with water, when compared with regular sprinklers. A pulsator sprinkler stands at the top of each tall stake, spaced every 18 feet along the row. The pulsator "spits" out water along the row line, wetting the vines, but not the cover crop between the rows. The pumps must be started before the temp gets to freezing, because the water will initially evaporate, dropping the temperature before stabilizing at 32 degrees. So a late start can actually drop the temperature into the killing zone. The lower the relative humidity, the earlier the system must be turned on. It is a juggling act done every night until the danger of frost is past. I'll be going to bed with my boots on 'til then.

Beginnings

I was born in the Central Valley, in Woodland. As a kid, my folks took me up to my grandparents' ranch almost every weekend. Their young walnut orchard sprawled along a southern ridge overlooking the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River, in El Dorado County. My mom's side of the family homesteaded there in the foothills of the Sierras late in the 1800's.

My sisters, my cousins & I picked walnuts in the fall. We earned 25 cents per 5 gallon bucket, and three bucketfulls went into a burlap sack. With hands blackened by the walnuts' stain, we tied our nametags onto our sacks. Grandma tallied them up as we drove along in the fading autumn light, stacking the sacks on the old wooden trailer. One year, I bought a new bike with my earnings.

Walnuts are different in many ways from grapes, but having grown up learning to drive a tractor, dry-farming the dusty red soil, I jumped into growing grapes with more enthusiasm than sensible trepidation when my wife and I purchased an abandoned dairy ranch located west of Petaluma, in Sonoma County.

On my dad's side, the family had been in California even longer than on my mom's side. My great-great grandfather, Jackson Temple, took passage on a Clipper Ship from Massachussetts to the Isthmus of Panama, where he disembarked and hiked across to the Pacific Ocean. From the western shores of the Isthmus, he sailed north to San Francisco, settling first on his brother's farm located west of Petaluma in 1851.